Upon Further Review 2014: Offense vs Notre Dame

FORMATION NOTES: We're a… shotgun spread offense with personnel exactly like Rich Rodriguez's preferred 1 RB, 1 blocky/catchy, 3 WR?

We were in this game. Take off… er… put everyone in identical uniforms and don't check to see which team has the 6'5" giant at WR and you would have no idea which team was which based on presnap alignments. Excluding short yardage and two snaps inside the Michigan 5, Michigan had 49 shotgun snaps, five from the pistol, 7 in ace and zero I-Form.

This wasn't quite as WR heavy as that would imply as you can see Kerridge split to flanker in the above shot, something that happened half a dozen times. But… yeah, it looked like a callback to 2010 minus non-scramble QB runs, of which there was one.

Michigan deployed Kerridge all over; here he's the H-back.

And they deployed a few instances of what I call "Pistol FB," which indicates there's a dude next to Gardner and a TE.

Michigan ran a version of this where the "FB" was Norfleet, once from the pistol and once from the gun. Norfleet also motioned to the backfield for a two-back look.

Now if the next time Michigan uses my preferred offensive style if they could just score some points that would be cool.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Line was Cole/Magnuson/Miller/Glasgow/Braden the whole way. Gardner QB obviously; Green was the starting RB and vaguely the top guy, with Smith getting close to equal time and Hayes getting some third down snaps.

WR was a rotation between Funchess, Darboh, Chesson, and Norfleet with nobody else getting in IIRC. Hill and Williams saw almost all the TE snaps save a handful Butt got early; Kerridge also played H-back frequently.

[After THE JUMP: why don't you try running INTO the hole this time?]

why did you do this

I don't quit until late in the season.

a true michigan man would quit in the middle of the third quarter

Ah, so.

okay go i guess, what happened etc

A lot of dumb little things. Things that aren't particularly hard that Michigan biffed, either because they turn into a pumpkin on the road or they are adjusting to a new offense or randomness is bad or they are just bad. The rest of the season will tell. The CUMONG MAN I exclaimed on that bubble screen that had my mentions all full up with "I told you the bubble screen wasn't an answer" was real, and it was not spectacular:

That's just… I mean, block that guy and that is a first down instead of an eventual punt.

I am not 100% clear on how the outside WR decides who to block on bubbles (seems like any man look should be the slot, and any zone look whoever has the flat) but the default should always be the slot guy since he's closest, and if you know a bubble is coming and you check the slot first and he is hauling ass for Norfleet, you block that guy. It is not hard. And Michigan did it twice in this game, leading to Mayock moaning expressively about the awesome play of the ND defense without so much as mentioning the fact that running at a guy unblocked isn't real hard.

Unlike the defense, the lack of precision here was widespread. We have an entire section on the running backs upcoming, we saw Chesson have an issue above, we'll get to Gardner's general hesitance, and here's a route screwup that is subtle but deadly:

Williams releases to the outside instead of straight upfield, so he ends up getting in Funchess's way instead of Jaylon Smith's. The result is a PBU. If Smith gets hung up at all that's a nice catch and run.

The line was surprisingly good, but they were also susceptible to mental issues. Here Glasgow and Braden elect to cut the backside DT and have Braden chase after Jaylon Smith. This blocking angle would not work on Richard Nixon, let alone Smith:

Overall the line was the least of Michigan's problems but they were not so good as to not blow up some stuff.

So this is an entire team taking turns playing like poop, mentally. Is this supposed to make me feel better? Or worse?

I don't know.

Surely you must have some opinion.

I guess I'd rather have stuff like the above happen instead of having your OL flung into the ballcarrier on every play? Mental issues can get fixed faster than you can make your OL meatbastards. I mean, Michigan was not physically overwhelmed like they were in… oh… every game last year except Northwestern. So I'd rather have this.

With one major exception, for which we should get out a

I'm just not up for it

chart.

So these numbers are really low in amplitude, because there were only 20 tailback runs—scrambles and sacks and the like are in the protection metric—and a chunk of them had grading aborted because of ludicrous running back behavior.

BTW, I moved Kerridge to the OL section since he was basically a TE. I am thinking about renaming these sections to "Blocking" and "Running" since that's a more useful distinction anyway.

Yup: the running back situation is deeply alarming right now.

Did you know this had happened when you wrote up that thing about Fred Jackson parade of failed tailbacks post-Hart?

I saw two bad cuts live. I did not think it was this bad. The tailbacks were a disaster. Notre Dame tailbacks dodged guys in the backfield to avoid tackles for loss; Michigan tailbacks dodged holes to avoid runs for gain.

On the opening snap Michigan does allow penetration, but it is gap-vacating penetration that leaves a jump cut wide open:

Green cuts away from it. Yeah, maybe that guy makes a tackle if you head to the wide open hole. But since he still made the tackle you chose poorly. I minused Glasgow for this but I minused Green harder. Go to the side of the block that your OL is standing, into the large hole, and then if bad things happen that's not on you.

What's more: Green makes this worse on himself by making the right decision initially and then changing his mind. If he fires N/S hard immediately, which should be his natural instinct because he's a truck, he pounds out a couple more yards and I'm not as persnickety.

That was actually one of the less clear-cut WHAT ARE YOU DOING moments since it does feature a guy in the backfield making things difficult. Green did the same thing on a near-identical play in the fourth quarter, minus penetration:

The linemen are trying to turn in that guy and seal him. That is what you are looking for, because if they do that the D is in trouble. That is the #1 thing you are looking for.

Later, Green would be presented with this:

He ran away from the massive frontside gap in front of his face, into all the dudes on the backside. That was 1v1 against a safety for a massive gain. Instead, bupkis. It is even worse on film:

ARE YOU KIDDING ME

This is the thing that still makes me twitch more than anything else about this game.

De'Veon Smith was not immune, either. Here he turned a crystal clear opportunity to MINOR RAGE down the backside of Notre Dame's defense into nothing:

This was so obvious some unaffiliated dude at 247 compared it to a 40-yard touchdown Florida had in their game. This screenshot is just…

…oy. The endzone view is boggling. Unaffiliated dude Pete Roussel:

You can bet Michigan running back coach Fred Jackson has already watched the film with his group and given his running an opportunity this week in practice to demonstrate the correct aiming point, track, and techniques involved in this play.

I might take that bet. I might bet that Fred Jackson planned on doing this but got distracted by his never-ending thirst and is now buried under an avalanche of still-full pop, juice, water, milk, Hi-C, Capri-Sun, soda, Ecto-Cooler, tea, and coffee bags/bottles/cans/sacks/boxes/mugs.

Smith at least learned better than Green did. On Michigan's penultimate drive they went back to the triple option look for a belly play and he cut hard N/S for 15.

Finally, Michigan got stuffed on a third and one on their first drive. Jaylon Smith makes this difficult, but Michigan caves a defensive end off the ball. Maybe Smith grabs you after he contacts the blocker, maybe not. The opportunity to make a play by bouncing is there, and once you get out there on short yardage you could be flying for a long while:

This is a situation where bouncing might get you tackled for a loss on third and one and chewed out so I don't want to say this is wrong, per se.

But there's a play to be made there.  A guy with Hart-like feel and feet feels that cave-in of the DE and conspires to use it. Make a guy miss, juke in-out with a plan in mind instead of Green's "oh poop what now" on the first play in this section, just do something. Make plays! Running back is a make plays position, and nobody is making any plays. The opportunities were there; collectively the 21 tailback carries probably left 100, maybe more, yards on the field.

I don't want to write anyone off right now, but can we please see some real carries for Hayes? It is possible to be an effective running back without being 225 pounds. Hell, the guy who looked the best with the ball in his hands was Norfleet and that's not even close.

And so… the offensive line was good?

Yes. Now, let's state that this ND line is a far cry from last year's. There's no Nix, there's no Tuitt, there's no Shembo. But this was a much better performance from the OL in specific than last year's 41-point outburst. Before you knock this counterintuitive assertion, here's the assessment from last year's UFR after a 41-point outburst:

Michigan's protection number of 60% is very, very bad and he was +5.5 on the ground largely because he is fast.

That out of the way, there are a few positives amongst mostly exploding face here. Lewan was his normal self even against Tuitt and Day. Toussaint had a good day turning nothing into something, and when Michigan went to isos in the second half Kerridge was a thumping presence.

The rest? Urgh.

Scoreboard.

So. The protection numbers are actually a bit worse than I expected, but they're near 70% and that's with an 0/3 on the last play I bothered with when ND sent seven guys at Gardner because lol we're up 31. The blocking numbers hit our 66% desired mark, and while a very good performance from the TEs and one Hill plus for breaking a tackle that shouldn't be in there are folded in make that percentage overstate the OL's performance, overall it was quite good.

This year when the tailbacks actually went in the damn gap things went forward.

That was a consistent(!) thing. Day gave Michigan a good deal of trouble; other than that they were decent, at least insofar as you can tell when you only get about 15 reasonable attempts to judge blocking.

Even Miller, most people's vote for Obvious Weak Point, held up for the most part. Yeah, he got bulled back into the quarterback some on the drive-killing Gardner fumble in the first half. As errors go that's not a huge one. If Gardner throws on time, nobody notices. If Gardner decides he doesn't have a WR and bursts through the gap next to Miller, nobody notices. It's only when Gardner decides to throw and then aborts that the ball ends up essentially on the hand of the DL.

Compare that to last year… exactly.

When not being not quite physically dominant enough to hold up to a DT, he was doing well. Here he channels Molk, stepping around a guy lined up shaded outside a guard to seal and pave the way for a first down:

That is hard to do. Yes, even if the guy is going upfield. Step-around-and-anchor is something that made Michigan's run game go for years, except when it ground to a halt when Molk was injured.

But they got more pressure than we did, by a million.

There were a couple of blitz biffs where Sheldon Day of all people was let loose untouched, but any semblance of pressure was 1) usually isolated enough to let Gardner deal with it by moving around or 2) created by indecision in the QB.

Remember how we talked about Golson being 1-2-3-gone in the defensive UFR? Compare that to Gardner on this second down:

That's 1-2-3-4-5-gone, and thus the safety blitz feels dangerously close to getting home. Late in the first half, Magnuson lost a guy, kind of got away with a hold, and let his guy in on Gardner. If this was last year this would have been the first in a series of baffling miscues that ended with Gardner buried under ten tons of rat meat. Instead Gardner just stepped up in the pocket and… sigh… missed an open Dennis Norfleet for a potential 75-yard touchdown.

Meanwhile this is like up to 7-not-gone before the walls cave in.

The protection breakdowns came in isolated drabs until very late when Notre Dame was sending cover-zero blitzes at Gardner in the waning minutes of a five-score game because lol we're up 31.

Speaking of Gardner.

Devin Gardner 2013

Devin Gardner

Shane Morris

He was bad. I know the DSR says eh, okay; the DSR hasn't been good at turnovers. Gardner had four plus what was essentially a fifth when Michigan recovered his fumble for a 17-yard loss. Even if you don't count the last two because it was laugher time, three turnovers that are entirely your fault is game-crushingly bad.

He started off hitting a lot of throws, but even early his decision-making let Michigan down. After the bubble biff above Michigan had a third and five on which he took off early and got hacked down by Jaylon Smith; the first fumble was caused mostly by his indecision.

The first interception was atrocious. Live I thought a blitz was about to blow him up, but Michigan picked it up fine and Gardner lasered one directly into a safety's chest after staring Hill down the whole route:

The overhead view makes it very clear that Gardner looked at one guy the whole way and all but delivered a hand-written Invitation To An (inter)Reception to the safety.

Michigan would later throw it deep to Funchess like once ever and that worked and then they had a drive. Michigan would give Gardner stellar protection, and after he moved around the pocket Chesson came blitheringly wide open in front of his face; Gardner never saw him and eventually started running, getting crushed and fumbling.

The third interception was deep into DGAF territory and a terrible route by Darboh; still that guy sitting at ten yards is asking for trouble.

He was bad. He was accurate, for the most part, but his decisions and ability to read the Notre Dame defense were substandard. Caveat: from what little I could tell it felt like Michigan was not getting much separation. Switch the QBs and Gardner may have an awesome day. This was not one, though, nor even a decent one.

At least they used NORFLEET though.

Yeah, one of the pleasant surprises from the game was Norfleet's creative, diverse, and effective deployment. He was a decoy on a couple of those "option" runs, took an end-around, grabbed a couple screens, was an emergency option on a swing pass, and even had a couple of handoffs out of the backfield.

Norfleet has a cutback option there but elects to follow his blocks and go with the play design; he was patient and explosive at the right times when he got the ball in his hands.

Also in fringe guys who played well, Kerridge had an interesting day. Nussmeier isn't a huge fan of fullbacks, so Kerridge bounced from H-back to flanker(!) along with a smattering of actual FB snaps. This is likely because he's the best blocky/catchy guy at the blocking stuff. Norfleet's end around featured him clubbing Jaylon Smith about eight yards downfield:

He coolly chopped down some blitzers

I don't like splitting him to flanker on obvious passing downs, as Michigan did with some frequency. You get matchup positives when it's a standard down; on third and ten you should have a wideout out there.

(You'll also note that this play or close enough was one Ace thought might make an appearance as Michigan goes to an IZ-focused run game—end around or fly sweep to Norfleet with an arc block to make that DE think twice.)

And Hill showed some promise. He looked like a capable receiver and okay-but-developing blocker. He also decleated a guy.

These are all Norfleet related since they are edge blocks for Norfleet. Also Norfleet. Norfleet for tailback and president and AD and pope.

RPS POSITIVE? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?

Again, RPS is a trees measure so I only issue a minus if ND does something that I think makes it specifically hard for Michigan to get anything on play X. I am with you on the inexplicable lack of throwing it a long way to the guy who is a foot taller than the other guy. The metric doesn't really have room for "did not throw deep to Funchess on this play, RPS –1."

So what's it good for? It's good for seeing who won the rock paper scissors. I think Michigan came out slightly ahead. They didn't run into stacked boxes such that the extra guy was a free hitter in the hole (except once), they took the stuff on the edges that was there, or would have  been there if Michigan wasn't derping their blocking, they neither sprung the big surprise for a big gain (low RPS positive) nor ate blitz after blitz on which unblocked guys showed up to death the running back to death (low RPS negative).

The gameplan mostly made sense, the plays were there to be made, Michigan did not make them. Yes, God yes, throw it deep to Funchess a lot. Other than that this was good.

Wideouts?

[Passes are rated by how tough they are to catch. 0 == impossible. 1 == wow he caught that, 2 == moderate difficulty, 3 == routine. The 0/X in all passes marked zero is implied.]

I'm going to try a new thing this year where if a route jumps out at me as obviously good or bad I'll make a note of it. A good route gets his guy wide open, a bad one allows a defender to make a play on the ball or results in an incompletion because the guy stumbles or falls down or whatnot.

ROUTES: Hill –1, Williams –1, Darboh -2

I hope everyone who trashed Funchess's hands this offseason is paying… oh who am I kidding they're all drunk.

Heroes?

Jack Miller, Funchess, and to a lesser extent most of the rest of the OL.

Maybe not so heroic?

Tailbacks. Gardner.

What does it mean for Miami (Not That Miami) and the future?

Take a deep breath. Just as last year's ND game did not herald an explosive offense of fireworks and Gardner Heisman heroics, this year's game does not herald nonstop doom. There were a bunch of simple errors that could get corrected; Gardner played poorly; I don't think I've ever seen Michigan tailbacks play that badly. The parts are there, particularly on the OL, to be okay.

Funchess still good. Let's throw it at him deep some more.

The OL looks vastly improved. You can improve vastly and still not be real good but they hit the number against a real team. They didn't hit the number against, like, Akron last year. They are still going to be subpar; there will be struggles; the cohension of these guys already vastly outstrips last year's outfit.

And they won't change. This is your starting OL until injury or serious struggles. Hooray.

All available options should be considered for tailback. Green and Smith should be given the opportunity to atone, but #FREEJUSTICE and #CONSIDERGNOMEFLEEET. This was gross.

Gardner needs to take a breath and have things slow down. As I said at the beginning of the season, his decisions are never going to be good enough to be great; he can be much better than he was in this game.

It gets better. One dollar, I bet it.